Phone Call
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: In the quiet of the Reed household, suddenly there's a phone call.


**Author's Note: This story is a companion piece to my other stories 'Daffodil Time', 'Omen' and 'The Parting Gift'. It has not been beta'd, so any mistakes are mine.**

**Dedicated to Shi Shi, by way of a 'welcome back!' present.**

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

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It was raining when the phone rang.

She remembered that long afterwards, but at the time it didn't seem important. She was in the lounge, looking out across the garden; she'd been out there that morning, tying up the daffodils, which had put on a tremendous show this year but were now little more than sad clumps of browning leaves.

Daffodils...

The gardener didn't really like them, but she ignored him. He had his way with everything else, the wisteria and the cherry arbour and the immaculately rolled lawn. Only with the daffodils (and with the snowdrops too, lakes of shy beauty in the bare, late-winter flowerbeds; she shouldn't forget the snowdrops) did the Lady of the House raise the flag of covert rebellion. Daffodils she loved, and daffodils there should be...

But they were over now, like so many other things, and a stiff wind from the south-west was swooping up the Solent. A wind with a hint of warmth in it, but still strong enough to set the ilex tree by the wall swaying; and it had brought rain with it, which it threw in random silver flurries across the garden. There was a blackbird singing in the pear tree. She hadn't heard him before, that year, and his liquid song seemed to be calling the Spring – the season that, having delivered the overture of snowdrops and daffodils, was unaccountably hesitating in the wings before making its grand entrance.

The telephone interrupted her reverie. Its tone was brash. She would have preferred something more melodious, but that was just another of a thousand small battles fought and lost in the long sorry history of her annihilation.

There was a determined silence from the study next door. The distances were pretty well equal, but she knew her place. Cravenly she went into the hall, but there was compensation for her when she lifted the receiver. Madeleine seldom called, certainly not as often as a mother would have liked. The young people nowadays had little sense of what was owing; though maybe something was also due to the fact that the vid-link was strictly Stuart's province, and he made no secret of resenting its use for what he called 'frivolous chit-chat'. Wherefore the telephone, in an age where it was practically a museum piece. Still, it was nice of Madeleine to call–

The soft, muted ramblings of her thoughts froze, arrested by two words.

_"They're leaving–"_

No question of who 'they' might be; the newsfeeds had talked of little else for weeks, and she had endured it in silence, not daring to speak the name that trembled constantly on her tongue. Not even to name the ship that was to carry Earth's hope for survival out into the unknown, along with the hopes of many for vengeance for their dead: _seven million_ dead, on a continent scarred to the bone by a strike out of nowhere. The headlines had hardly had words sufficient for their outrage and hate; and now, one ship was to go out alone in search of the perpetrators of that heinous act. To find them and confront them – to pit human strength and courage against a foe whose technological might could only be exceeded by their incalculable evil.

She put down the receiver. On unsteady legs she walked back into the lounge. The television was rarely used; Stuart disapproved of it, thought it too was 'frivolous'. Only when he was absent had she dared to switch it on, and sat in front of it with her eyes glued so intensely she hardly dared blink: watching, watching, as programme after programme discussed the quest and those who were to go on it. Some lauded them as heroes, while others dismissed them as fools, and railed against their overlords for sending them out to comb the galaxy instead of keeping them close at home in defence of their threatened, wounded world. Every member of the crew was an object of the most intense interest (there had even been calls to the house, some perfectly _vulgar _people, until Stuart 'had a word' with the local police). And though naturally that nice young captain who'd called them once was the focus of most of it, still there was enough to spare for the senior officers who would make up his staff. And here in England, of course, the Englishman among them was of particular interest.

Guilty and daring, she switched it on now. No sound, though; she blessed the inventor of the 'Mute' button.

The news was on. Her heart bounding unsteadily, she sat down to watch it. Behind the newsreader, the display showed the starship – the distinctive flattened shape that now adorned so many children's drawings. There had been a programme yesterday morning about a local school where the children had worked on a mural showing the brave crew confronting cowering aliens; and of course with feeling running so high, there was enormous interest on the weapons the ship might bring to bear when these cowards were finally tracked to their lair.

This led, inevitably, to intense concentration on the man whose responsibility those weapons would be...

Even Madeleine had been plagued by reporters anxious for a 'scoop' on the 'man behind the guns'. She had been forthright, of course (Madeleine was always forthright – one reason why she and her father had never got along), and the Press had eventually been induced to leave her alone. But she was free to watch the television whenever she chose...

The backdrop on the news-screen changed. The picture of the ship vanished, and in its stead was one of the captain. Flanked by four of his senior officers. Although she couldn't hear what the newsreader was saying, and was too distraught to remember the existence of subtitles, it was obvious that this was a farewell press conference.

A hand clasped hastily across her mouth stifled her involuntary moan of anguish. Her gaze was for one man only, and it was not Captain Archer.

He looked older, burdened with cares. He stood rigid, though, his expression resolute, his hands clasped behind his back like those of his fellow officers.

The ship was leaving, and many feared it would never be seen or heard of again; that it would meet some unknown fate far away, crushed by the enemy or destroyed by any one of the dangers of this mysterious 'Delphic Expanse' on which the papers concentrated so much morbid fascination. _He _would be leaving, aboard it, without a single word of blessing from his parents to send him on his way.

She didn't dare imagine how he must feel. It wasn't bearable. But she imagined it anyway, and the too-ready tears welled up and spilled silently down her face. Perched on the edge of the chair, she rocked as though in physical agony. Her son, her little boy, who'd been reviled by his father as a weakling since the day he'd been born, was going into deadly danger. Some of the reports openly doubted whether any of the _Enterprise _crew would live to tell the tale.

Madeleine had been sobbing. For all that she'd kept up a brave front till now, it was clear that she didn't expect to see her brother again.

A gust of wind flung rain against the French windows. The drops ran down the glass, weeping and inconsolable.

He might never again see the daffodils bloom.

At that thought, rage came out of nowhere. It lent her courage. She knew there would be a cost, but whatever it was, she would pay it, and gladly.

She got up, and marched over to the computer. As the next of kin of one of the crew, they'd received a special contact link to Starfleet. For whatever reason, Stuart hadn't deleted it. It still sat in the inbox, unopened. Maybe he derived some kind of spiteful pleasure from steadfastly ignoring its existence – much as he had that of his only son since the ingrate broke with the Reed tradition of generations and sought a career among the stars.

Sitting down in front of the keyboard, she opened the communications programme, opened the file and clicked on the link.

A movement in the doorway might – in another life – have made her look up. Made her think twice.

The Starfleet logo blinked onto the screen. Immediately following it, a pleasant-looking young man blinked in some perplexity at the screen. Doubtless he was surprised by the activity on what must have been deemed an effectively dead line. "Mrs ... Reed?" he ventured. "May I help you?"

"I certainly hope so." She lifted her chin. There were no mirrors in the lounge, and so she never saw the look of resolve that was the mirror of her son's. She saw the shock and anger in the face of her husband, come to check up on the nature of the phone call, and looked back at him just as Malcolm would look back at the Xindi; because her son was not a weakling and not a coward. "I believe that _Enterprise_ has not left space dock yet?"

"N..No, ma'am."

"Then I would appreciate it if you would ask Lieutenant Reed if he might possibly have time to call home. I won't take up much of his time, but this is important. Can you pass on that message, please?"

"I'll pass it on, Ma'am, but I can't promise..."

"As long as you pass it on, my son will do the rest." With a few gracious words of thanks, she closed the link. And without giving herself time to realise exactly what she'd done, she rose and confronted her husband.

"I'll be waiting here until Malcolm calls," she said quietly. "You may want to be here when that happens, or you may not. But whatever you decide, he's not going to be the only man on that ship who thinks neither of his parents give a hang whether he lives or dies out there."

His face twisted. Without a word, he turned and walked back into his study.

For the thousandth time, she wondered if he suspected. If he'd ever searched his son's face in vain for the slightest physical resemblance to himself, and the lack of it had added fuel to his baffled contempt for the frail boy whose steel core had finally been exposed on the day he'd chosen Starfleet over the Royal Navy. But if he did suspect, he'd never ask. He wouldn't want the truth, that the only child he'd sired had been a girl. Better even a runt than that.

Doubtless it would take time for the message to be sent to _Enterprise_, and no doubt many calls on his time would keep the ship's Armoury Officer from such mundane tasks as receiving family messages. Nevertheless, he would get it. And he would answer it. Of that she was absolutely certain.

She moved back to her armchair. She had a small workbox beside it, with a drawer containing small things of sentimental value: mostly from the children's schooldays, such as a number of laboriously hand-made cards of various levels of expertise, and photographs of the two of them posing stiffly in uniform. Anonymous at the bottom of it was a single faded envelope, without writing or anything to mark it out. She hadn't opened it for years.

The flap was tucked down, not sealed; sealed would have looked suspicious. Not that it was likely anyone would ever think to look.

Slowly she slid out the photograph within. Small wonder that Stuart looked in vain for his own image in the face of the boy he'd raised as his own. It looked back at her now from beneath the black and white umbrella, smiling that tender, teasing smile that could still turn her heart over, after all these years. The woman on whom her son unleashed that smile would be lost, just as she had been; would be special, because he so rarely smiled...

The buzz from the vid-link startled her from a hundred memories.

On the screen, the Starfleet logo appeared. Beneath the emblem the ID scrolled across. _Incoming message + Intraship communication + Encrypted + Priority 2 + Personal +_

And then the screen changed. Across however many miles, the grey eyes of her son looked back at her, with a faint, worried frown. "Mum? Is there something wrong?"

The breath caught in her throat. He'd never looked more vulnerable, as though caught momentarily with those formidable defences lowered. He was tired, too; they were working him too hard. She wanted to reach out and put her arms around him – but then he'd never been comfortable with cuddles. Maybe it was because he'd had so few. A future _Royal Navy officer _had to be reared hard, with discipline.

Out of his line of sight, her fingers tightened momentarily on the photograph. She'd failed him for too long, failed both of them. She mustn't fail him now.

"No, Malcolm, nothing's wrong. I just ... I just wanted to tell you that we'll be thinking of you. And that we love you."

She saw the unmistakable flash of bitterness, and understood it. Saw, too, by that odd sense of empathy they sometimes shared, that 'we' could be understood to represent any combination of persons. Slowly the tension faded from the wary gaze, to be replaced by a small smile. Doubtless Maddie would indeed wish to be included.

"Thanks, Mum. Wish me luck."

He might have been going to say more, but the chirp of a comm panel on the wall behind him was a call he could not ignore. Duty, it was clear, summoned him. Family would have to take a step back.

He straightened. For all that externally nothing had changed, something about him told her that whatever this moment of rebellion might cost her, it was worth it.

As a Reed, he would do his duty. There was no need for her to repeat the maxim of ancient Sparta that had been a litany of his upbringing: _Come back with your shield, or on it. _In this hour of Earth's direst danger, it truly was 'victory or death'.

Involuntarily she reached out and touched the screen. In response, he did the same, spreading his fingers so that their tips seemed to meet. "'Bye, Mum."

_+ Intraship communication terminated +_

"Goodbye, Malcolm," she whispered.

From the study came the sound of a low voice, full of bitterness. "If he'd done his duty he'd be safe at sea now, with his own ship. Not being packed off on that fool's errand with those damned Yanks. And going to his death, most like. And for what? You tell me."

She put the photograph back in the envelope.

For what, indeed?

Only time would tell.

But for now, there was only the waiting.

**The End.**

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**All reviews received with gratitude!**


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